An assumed strain triangular curved solid shell element formulation for analysis of plates and shells undergoing finite rotations

A formulation for 36-DOF assumed strain triangular solid shell element is developed for efficient analysis of plates and shells undergoing finite rotations. Higher order deformation modes described by the bubble function displacements are added to the assumed displacement field. The assumed strain field is carefully selected to alleviate locking effect. The resulting element shows little effect of membrane locking as well as shear locking, hence, it allows modelling of curved shell structures with curved elements. The kinematics of the present formulation is purely vectorial with only three translational degrees of freedom per node. Accordingly, the present element is free of small angle assumptions, and thus it allows large load increments in the geometrically non-linear analysis. Various numerical examples demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the present formulation. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.